The State of Palestine (Robert Wright & Matthew Lee)

[Bloggingheads]

[jerusalemite]

Mr. Lee, please calm down and speak a little more slowly.

[Flaw]

Originally Posted by jerusalemite

Mr. Lee, please calm down and speak a little more slowly.

Try 1x...

[chiwhisoxx]

I don't think reprehensible speeches like the one Abbas gave at the UN help the Palestinian cause.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/...20110954.shtml

[opposable_crumbs]

Originally Posted by chiwhisoxx

I don't think reprehensible speeches like the one Abbas gave at the UN help the Palestinian cause.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/...20110954.shtml

Sadly, I think it is the dishonest reporting, dressed up as so-called fact checking, by CBS / AP that is reprehensible.

The transcript in English can be read here, for anyone who is interested.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomac...embly-1.386385

[Wonderment]

Great conversation, both on Palestine and Libya.

Why should the USA care if Israeli war criminals are referred to the ICC? It would provide an opportunity to begin to distance ourselves and eventually disengage from the ongoing (alleged) crimes, lest we be charged as co-conspirators, and lest our prestige and credibility in the region plummet from pathetically low to abysmal.

Message to my fellow Americans: We have a choice; we don't have to be joined at the hip to the Israeli settlements and occupation. To mix metaphors, the Zionist Titanic is sinking.

If Netanyahu and company get on the short list of heads of state with arrest warrants written in their names (Kadaffi, Omar Al-Bashir et al), pressure will rachet up against the Apartheid occupation.

Message to Palestinians: Stay nonviolent; you are winning!

Message to Israelis: Don't be afraid of secular democracy; let your Palestinians sisters and brothers vote.

[Florian]

This diavlog would have been more interesting if Matthew Lee had not spoken in his breathless, staccato, New York style. I stopped counting the number of incomplete thoughts and incomplete sentences, the number of sentences beginning with "like" and sentences interrupted by "like." Like, I mean, slow down Matt. It's like, weird, ya know.

It must be one of the occupational hazards of being a UN reporter and listening to all that diplomatic gibberish.

[yoavgal@earthlink.net]

Mr. Wright prejudices in this matter are a bit too obvious. He usually comes across as a wise and congenial guy, but in this conversation he slide dangerously close to unreasoned hatred of Israel. I urge him to take another look at what Israel needs to cope with. Read the Hamas charter, then have a listen to Netanyahu’s speech again, read about the peace proposals rejected or ignored by the Palestinians, and re-consider whether the Palestinian move is a serious move in the direction of resolving the conflict. It is obviously not.

[Winspur]

Very informative, thank you Bob and Matthew. I know Matthew talks fast...my only request is that both of you try to cut down on "you know"s when speaking. I think about 3 minutes of this was "you know."

Wikipedia tells me that the General Assembly started meeting in January 1946. The partition of British India (into India and Pakistan) happened a year later. How the UN handled that problem would be interesting to know, as a guide to the Palestinian statehood problem. Like Palestine / Gaza today, Pakistan was originally two noncontiguous pieces of territory (one of them became Bangladesh).

[db63]

How the UN handled the outcome of the Simla Conference? Nothing, a million killed. Its amazing the pull 1970s anti-colonial rhetoric still has on the American left today.

[Wonderment]

Another very interesting aspect of the conversation was how the "humanitarian" mission in Libya morphed into the NATO war on Libya and the (undisclosed because we're still in denial) state-building mission currently underway.

Although the war was pitched as "responsibility to protect" civilians, we'll probably never know the actual number of civilian deaths or atrocities perpetrated by the two sides and the new factions that are emerging. Nor will we ever know what happened to many of Kaddafi's most dangerous weapons as his state disintegrated. Some observers already suspect that the intervention has been a win for Al Qaeda type groups in Africa.

Unintended consequences of war are like landmines: they're lethal to innocent populations, hidden well, and may not explode for decades.

Another important unintended diplomatic consequence is the inhibition of future participation by UN members in perhaps more legitimate R2P interventions. Once chastened by NATO interests trumping civilian protection and once having observed the UN allow Western escalation of the war, non-Western countries will be especially reluctant to support the next intervention, even if it's a real genocide, rather than Paris and Washington just crying wolf.

[pod2]

Again, magnificent. Matthew Lee's diavlogs always have the lowest bs-to-elapsed time ratios. Someone who is NOT committed to reciting talking points and has a significant amount of information and insight-- why only once per month?

[Wonderment]

Again, magnificent. Matthew Lee's diavlogs always have the lowest bs-to-elapsed time ratios. Someone who is NOT committed to reciting talking points and has a significant amount of information and insight-- why only once per month?

Agree. UN Plaza used to be a regular feature with Matthew and Marc Leon Goldberg. Unfortunately, it's apparently defunct. I hate to speculate but could be because of the low number of viewers. As you can see, this diavlog has generated few comments and only 300 "views."

[Ocean]

Originally Posted by Wonderment

Agree. UN Plaza used to be a regular feature with Matthew and Marc Leon Goldberg. Unfortunately, it's apparently defunct. I hate to speculate but could be because of the low number of viewers. As you can see, this diavlog has generated few comments and only 300 "views."

I'll add my comment just to say that Matthew is always very informative. Perhaps he could slow down a bit and complete his sentences, but we would all like to have him here more often. I don't usually comment because I don't have much to say.

[uncle ebeneezer]

I always watch these but rarely comment. Much of the discussion is well above my paygrade as far as my having anything significant to add. But I love them and hope that they continue regardless of views or comment tallies.

[TwinSwords]

Originally Posted by Wonderment

As you can see, this diavlog has generated few comments and only 300 "views."

I hate to quibble, and your point is well taken, but it's the thread that generated 300 views -- not the diavlog. The "views" count shows the number of people who clicked into the thread, not how many people watched the video.

The really interesting question is how closely thread views correlate to diavlog views.

Consider the fact that you don't even have to watch the video to enter the threads and comment, and that people follow each other around the forum arguing about various things. The fact that some offshoot of a conversation continues here or there doesn't reveal much, I don't think, about the popularity of a given diavlog with the general BhTV audience.

And given that just ten people are responsible for 2/3rds of all the action in the forum, and just 30 people are responsible for 90% of all posts, I think it's almost impossible to conclude anything about the popularity of diavlogs by counting comments or thread views. If anything, it shows the interest 10-30 people have in discussing the diavlog.

[stephanie]

Originally Posted by TwinSwords

The really interesting question is how closely thread views correlate to diavlog views.

Consider the fact that you don't even have to watch the video to enter the threads and comment, and that people follow each other around the forum arguing about various things. The fact that some offshoot of a conversation continues here or there doesn't reveal much, I don't think, about the popularity of a given diavlog with the general BhTV audience.

Yeah, totally agree. I often don't comment in threats where I found the diavlog very interesting or valuable, and there clearly are threads where the post length is generated by something other than the diavlog or merely by one small thing said in the diavlog that was particularly controversial.

[TwinSwords]

Originally Posted by stephanie

Yeah, totally agree. I often don't comment in threats where I found the diavlog very interesting or valuable, and there clearly are threads where the post length is generated by something other than the diavlog or merely by one small thing said in the diavlog that was particularly controversial.

Right. And that's not to knock the conversations happening in the threads. The conversations are sometimes very interesting.

It's just that the forum should not be confused with BhTV's actual audience: the people who watch the diavlogs. The forum is a group of about 30 people. Those 30 people do virtually all the posting (90%) in all the threads. (Six people do more than 50% of all commenting. Ten people do about 2/3rds of all commenting.) So, it's a pretty small club of people in these threads, and how much they choose to comment on any given diavlog -- like Matthew Lee's -- probably says very little about that diavlog's popularity with BhTV's real audience, the much larger group of thousands* who watch, but do not post comments.

*This is a guess, but I have to assume that Bob is getting at least a few thousand views on each diavlog, or he would have closed up shop a long time ago.

[pod2]

Whatever the case, Matthew Lee's diavlogs are invariably way more informative, funny, and substantive than most, and I would love to see more. This year's pairings are a definite improvement on the UN Dispatch. Brilliant. The main reason I recommend bloggingheads.tv to friends and family.

[Alexandrite]

Stop watching Matthew Lee in 1.4x and you won't have these problems.

Matt's fine, he's just excited to get everything out.

[Ocean]

Originally Posted by Alexandrite

Stop watching Matthew Lee in 1.4x and you won't have these problems.

Heh. For him we would need a 0.8x option.

Matt's fine, he's just excited to get everything out.

I agree with that.

[Flaw]

More MATTHEW LEE !!!!